The book can be enjoyed and appreciated at different levels. At the simplest, it will be enjoyed by all who like authors such as Ian Fleming, John Le Carré, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler.
BENGALURU: Where does fiction flow into fact? “Code Name Lucifer” is the absorbing story of our unknown gunmen, a thinly disguised work of fiction based on true events surrounding the elimination of dreaded terrorists who sought to undermine the integrity and unity of India for many years. The Government of India has declined to associate itself with these killings carried out by men and women who live in the world of darkness, barely at the edges of light, with speed their only ally and anonymity their only armour. One recollects the era of Nacht und Nebel in World War 2 when agents would dispatch enemies of Germany into the great void of darkness. If I were asked to give another title to the book, I would call it “To Light from Darkness”
The authors Savio Rodrigues and Shirish Thorat are surely associated with our intelligence agencies in some capacity or another, and a hint as to this was provided by a recent disclosure by the Washington Post that said that both were involved in a $6 million plot to overthrow President Muizzu of the Maldives. Indeed, the Maldives, as also various places in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the UK, Canada and India are the fictional locations in the book where the various hit jobs were done by Lucifer, the leader of this mysterious gang of men and women, who volunteered for the mission seeking closure for their unresolved grief—the fallen angels.
The authors make no attempt to hide the fact that their story is based on fact. In their words, “some facts have to remain in the realm of fiction”. Lucifer’s Ratpack, a brotherhood of the disillusioned, have engaging names and these names are what tempted me to delve into the 200 odd pages of this engaging novel. Any story where people named Heracles, Jezebel, Viper, Raven, Wraith, Ghost, Hawk, Tempest, Falcon, Grim and Inferno roam around, and yes, there is a Dove too in this crew, will capture my attention. After you finish the book, you sense that each of these brave and yet tortured souls surely have a real life equivalent. They killed for the Indian State in the extra-judicial arena, something no State can do, especially not India, a raucous and rambunctious electoral democracy. The government tacitly went in for a methodology where it had to perform both in the light and in the darkness—tamasoma jyotir gamaya.
Poignantly, these unknown warriors each had a professional tragedy that caused them to be removed or disgraced by the very State in whose services they were employed. What made them re-engage with the Indian State that had let them down so badly in one way or another? While the book attempts to probe this, it leaves many questions unanswered, but this in itself is a characteristic of the soft and subtle hues it paints even as it addresses profound questions concerning the inner workings of the human mind: yes, this is not just a regular work of fiction.
The book can be enjoyed and appreciated at different levels. At the simplest, it will be enjoyed by all who like authors such as Ian Fleming, John Le Carré, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. Anyone who likes movies such as “The Guns of Navarone”, “The Dirty Dozen”, “Anthropoid”, “Eye of the Needle” and “Munich”, or even “The Bourne Ultimatum” will enjoy this book because the main ingredients of these movies constitute the core of Lucifer—speed, secrecy, silence, ruthlessness and treachery.
At the next level, the book offers a tantalising glimpse of how tricky and difficult government decision making can be in matters of national security. The Prime Minister constantly wrestles with his internal dilemma. He knows that the unknown gunmen are his only way of eliminating terrorists and that their killings will resonate with a public that has for so long reconciled themselves to being humiliated as a nation by these enemy actors. Yet, he also knows the political downside to his government if its involvement with Lucifer is made public, not to speak of the international embarrassment that would inevitably follow. He does a balancing act and resolves his problem, again using light and darkness. These co-exist. He goes for denial in the light and engages in action in the darkness with Operation Black Lotus.
A personal intermezzo is provided by the unstated relationship between Lucifer, Ajay Bakshi, and his long-standing companion Aditi Mehra, the National Security Adviser. One operates in the darkness, the other must operate in the light, and yet both know the limits that the other cannot cross. This raises the book to the next level. There is something called morality which people must adhere to if they wish to be a part of civilised society. But what happens when an individual feels so strongly that the public codes of morality are insufficient and inadequate to address questions that he deems to be of primary importance—such as preventing deaths of innocents in incidents and actions perpetrated by terrorists who are determined to destroy one’s very country itself? Morality is insufficient, says Lucifer and he embraces only his own code of personal ethics that demands killing of the terrorists.
I, for one, feel the world today
One concludes with Dostoevsky who explored the depths of human suffering, guilt, despair and who claimed that only life’s darkness could reveal its most profound truths. He said that “suffering is the sole origin of consciousness”, implying that anguish shapes identity and meaning. The redemptive potential of embracing one’s flaws as Ajay Bakshi did, highlights the complex interplay between darkness and light.
This is a book, which at its moderate price, is well worth buying and reading.
* Gautam R. Desiraju is with the Indian Institute of Science